


Heart's Waste

by virginea



Series: Short Stories [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Daenerys Targaryen Is Not a Mad Queen, Daenerys Targaryen-centric, Drogon lives here lol, Episode: s08e05 The Bells, F/M, Fix-It, Targaryen Restoration, ch 1 angst ch 2 hea, ch 1 bitter ch 2 bittersweet ch3 SWEET, if you feel the urgency to correct the grammar of this my email is right there on my profile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:55:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23373535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virginea/pseuds/virginea
Summary: In the end, there's nothing. Only fear, a whimsical destiny.Daenerys does not burn King's Landing, instead, she does what queens do. She rules.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen
Series: Short Stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1872784
Comments: 119
Kudos: 252





	1. I. Let It Be Fear.

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [【翻译｜Translation】心之荒芜 Heart’s Waste](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24182002) by [AliceandHatter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceandHatter/pseuds/AliceandHatter)



> I had no plans to write anything else after finishing "The Threshold", even when my wound from the end of Daenerys is latent and very open. Throughout these months, in the time that I don't have my head stuck in college or in my own life, I still keep analyzing the meaning of her story, trying to find a reason, a meaning and not pure tragedy. Even before the final season had aired, I constantly repeated to myself that GRRM's vision is not the restoration and that Daenerys' goal, that is, to retake the throne of her family, is doomed. However some days ago, something exploded in me while reading an article that celebrated the fall of Daenerys as a "feminist tragedy". I particularly adhere to a certain field of feminist theory and consider myself a feminist, and to celebrate that a victim of abuse has become the perpetrator of an act so cruel that it completely dehumanized her in the eyes of the audience, it is terrifying, and anything but feminist. 
> 
> Nor only Dany has not managed to get out of that vicious circle: her story begins with her being abused by her brother and ends up with her being murdered by her nephew, who at the same time, is a man with whom she maintains a romantic bond that grants him the possibility to approach her and murder her. Call it a tragic ending but not fucking feminism. I live in a country where the news of women murdered by their partners is our daily bread, seeing that shit being romanticized is just awful.
> 
> To break my own mindset a bit, I wrote this little story that does end with a targ restoration. In the middle, some things happen, but the end is that. 
> 
> Again clarify that I am not, nor do I intend to be a writer. It is true that I like writing and it is a kind of hobby, but I am generally better at discursive and argumentative texts, not fiction.

_Water in the millrace, through a sluice of stone,_   
_plunges headlong into that black pond_   
_where, absurd and out-of-season, a single swan_   
_floats chaste as snow, taunting the clouded mind_   
_which hungers to haul the white reflection down._

_The austere sun descends above the fen,_   
_an orange cyclops-eye, scorning to look_   
_longer on this landscape of chagrin;_   
_feathered dark in thought, I stalk like a rook,_   
_brooding as the winter night comes on._

_Last summer's reeds are all engraved in ice_   
_as is your image in my eye; dry frost_   
_glazes the window of my hurt; what solace_   
_can be struck from rock to make heart's waste_   
_grow green again? Who'd walk in this bleak place?  
  
_

_–_ Sylvia Plath, “Winter Landscape, with Rock”

**I. Let It Be Fear**

In the end, there's nothing. Only fear, a whimsical destiny.

Looking at the clear skies of Blackwater Bay, and hearing the birds' squawking as they fly over Red Keep totally indifferent to the pang in her heart, Daenerys comes again to the appalling realization she is there, a mere distance away to the place she had dreamed – craved –, the most. Her goal is fulfilled, but it doesn’t feel like she has won anything.

She has everything and at the same time nothing. Only dust and ash in her mouth.

There is nothing she can do, just suspend herself in time and let her doomed fate play out and tragedy claim her as it has done since she took her first breath.

Decisive seconds, the world holds its breath and waits for the coin to fall.

For her, it is never been enough to prove that the coin has already fallen a long time ago on the right side.

For everyone's eyes, the coin was still in the air and that she could not change that perception. 

_Then, let the coin turn_ , she thinks, tightening her grip on Drogon's spines, as the beast roars concurrently with its mother's fury. _Let it be fear_.

At that point, mother and son are the same bleeding and suffering heart that never seems to know peace. The absences of their loved ones that now have to settle in their minds and perpetuate in their existences; They are alone.

Viserion.

Jorah.

Rhaegal.

Missandei.

The thousands of Dothraki and Unsullied who crossed the Narrow Sea out of pure faith in her.

Her faith in Tyrion, and his faith in her if that ever existed. 

Her love for Jon, and his love for her if that ever existed. 

Her claim.

Her destiny.

In the end, there is nothing. Only fear.

But when was there anything else but fear? Why was she so scared now? What person was that? She is no longer herself. Daenerys did not know who she is but the image that others painted of her.

"Ring the bells! Ring the bells!" they screamed below her.

"Mercy!" they beg.

Where before there was love, now there is only fear. Where there was hope before, now there is only desolation.

_But when there was more in her life than that?_

In the end, there is nothing, but fear. And at the beginning, it was the same and she endured, over and over again. 

_If I look back, I'm lost_.

Daenerys shakes her head and leans back over the rocky texture of Drogon's back, the only place where she knows who she is and where she will always find shelter until the end of her days.

As the city trembles, Tyrion and Jon look at her in terror and Cersei Lannister sheds a tear of defeat, Dany takes flight, but not to the South where Red Keep will remain intact and graceless, but to where is the person who had failed her the most awaits her.

Tyrion Lannister had made her feel that she could find in him that older brother that life had denied her. She believed that he saw her in the same way, as a family that would never reject him and that will appreciate him with all his defects and virtues. But as it happens with Jon, she is not enough and will never be. 

As she climbs down on Drogon's back with that disappointed expression that hasn't left her face since she set foot on Westeros, Daenerys reaches out to Tyrion and rips off the Hand's pin from his vest, tossing it away somewhere among the rotting corpses.

***

The tumult turns to silence as she moves forward with no escort other than Drogon's silent warning prowling the sky. She was ready for people to do some physical harm to her that could make her forget the pain in her heart and mind, yet they didn't. They behold the sight of her with fear and respect. 

Although Jon crossed those same streets a few moments ago, it is Daenerys who history would remember as the first Targaryen to walk King's Landing victoriously, two decades after Robert's rebellion.

A victory that she tastes bitter.

As soon as the soldiers of the North see her approach, they line up to allow her a safe passage that every monarch must receive. Despite their animosity towards her, there is something else on their faces that she has not yet perceived.

Respect.

There is no love, but fear has provided her with new respect that should suffice. 

It must have always been this way, she thinks. 

Until recently, her heart used to skip a beat every time she saw Jon, yet the feeling faded to numbness, just a memory of what would never be now. That is why she just passes by him to stand in front of Torgo Nudho, and do what she should have done from the beginning.

" _This is not what she would have wanted_ ," Dany says as she takes his arm and squeezes it. She is sure that he would not defy her, but demand from him to abandon his rage as she did with her own seems unfair, and Daenerys owes him at least understand, and acknowledge his pain.

At that moment, Torgo Nudho is not a soldier but a man who had loved and lost in the cruelest way.

Grey Worm nods and shouts the commands to the Unsullied to prepare and guard the way for Dany to take Red Keep. 

"Your grace," Jon calls behind her. She doesn't even turn back. "We still need to secure that the place it's safe for you."

Dany scoffs with her eyes set on her path ahead. 

"Do not worry, Lord Snow," she answers, "I've survived and waited enough."

***

_What a lovely image_ , Daenerys thinks at the sight of Arya Stark and Ser Jaime Lannister, who she knew Tyrion had freed some hours before, fighting while Cersei lies in a corner, hunkered down and scared, while the last chance to flee alive fades away.

Jon sees at his sister with the same horror he watched her extinguish Varys' life. 

"Arya!" he shouts.

The girl's face wheels off to her brother, cousin, but in her face, there's indecision and pain, as if something she really craved for as been stolen away from her.

"I must kill her!"

It is animalistic hate, the way Grey Worm feels and herself some moments ago up in the walls of the city. Dany can understand this girl's emotions.

"She is with child!" Jaime Lannister announces the obvious. The man is bleeding heavily and breathing his lasts moments away. Those wounds didn't seem like something Arya did since her sword was clean and too thin.

A part of her rejoices when she sees Tyrion, who was escorted and chained, runs to his brother and sees that his betrayal did not result.

 _You did this to yourself, Tyrion_.

"Your grace, please," Tyrion begs, his voice broken, "Mercy for that child, it's not to blame for its mother's sins."

When she twitches her lips in disgust it's not out of frustration because Cersei's death will have to wait. 

"Did Cersei think that when my own child fell down the sky? Did she have mercy when Missandei's head was torn apart from her body?" 

"You are not Cersei," he retorts, as tears fall down his cheek when his brother Jaime starts fainting. His misery causes conflict within her. 

"I am not," Dany asserts. Cersei was protected by her family until the last moment. Cersei was a monster but she still was loved. "And because of that, I've been losing," she adds, rolling her eyes and walking around them to see at the pathetic view of her. Dany sighs and turns to see at Jon and Tyrion, both of them holding their respective sibling. "Each word I heard from you two only brought me woe and losses." She looks back at the evil woman. "Cersei will not die today. _Take her_."

She abandons the scene to move where she actually wants to be: the Throne Room.

"Dan-," Jon calls but she tosses a glance at him. 

"Deal with your sister."

***

  
The range of emotions that he has experienced only in the last hour perhaps a regular person would never experience. But at that moment what Jon feels is a pure shame. The shame of having to drag his little sister so that she will not attack a dying man and murder a pregnant woman.

"Let go of me!" Arya shouts, forcing herself out of his grip.

"What are you doing here? Why didn't you tell me you were going to come?" 

He doesn't know who the person in front of him is. Mayhaps Arya was once the person he trusted the most, but right there Jon felt like an idiot man for having trust in his sisters.

"You don't know Cersei the way I do," she argues, "But you've seen what she does and the pain she causes. Imagine all of that happening to a little girl!"

Yes, he will not deny that woman was evilness made flesh. Had the circumstances been different, he, himself would have dragged her out of Red Keep to throw her at Dany's feet.

"She is with child," Jon repeats what Jaime Lannister pleaded with his lasts breaths. 

"So was Robb's wife when she was murdered."

In all that time, he has been so focused on obtaining the Iron Throne for Dany and ending the wars that he had not realized that punishing the Lannisters was also relevant to his sisters. The way they had antagonized Daenerys had made him forget about everything else. 

"Aye, that's why children should not pay for their parent's sins."

"You don't understand," she insisted, almost crying. 

"What I understand is that both of you, Sansa and you, have betrayed my trust and directly harm Daenerys' good faith."

Her eyes widen.

"What Sansa did?" she inquires but almost immediately finds in her own mind the answer. "She broke her oath," she said, defeated. The mention of Sansa's grave misdeed has taken Arya out of the fog. So, she cools down and takes a deep breath before implying, "You can't allow your Queen to hurt Sansa."

He would have laughed. In fact, laughing would have been another extreme reaction to add to the mix, he thinks.

"Don't you hear me?" he shouts with despair and incredulity.

"I know, I know. Just," Arya dismisses him and passes him by, "Get off my way."

***

Unsullied escorts block his way as he advances toward the throne room. Jon understands that keeping Daenerys safe now is more fundamental than ever, but it feels odd being restrained like that after everything that had happened between them. He really believed that that day, no one was going to know Dany's mercy.

How wrong he was.

"Let him pass," her monotonous voice orders. 

He thought that he was going to find her sitting on the throne, however, there is her on the steps of the throne, in a position so human and so defeated that one would not think that it is Daenerys Targaryen after recovering her, _their_ family's legacy. 

When she lifts her face, he sees the tears shed and the icy eyes that no longer say anything to him when they once said everything. She swallows hard. Jon has never felt so helpless.

"My brother Viserys used to tell me this was a marvel but all I see is an ugly chair," she begins, "I have to admit that, at least, he tried to protect me from this reality while his endurance allowed him. And now, I can't help but thinking if he had enjoyed it more than me."

Viserys was a piece of shit, he knows. 

"You deserve this," he tries to reassure. Not because her state is devastating but because there is nothing more true than this. 

Dany laughs, graceless.

"But it's not mine, right?" 

The memory of what kept them apart hangs over them like Drogon's shadow over King's Landing earlier that day. There were times when he forgot about it, and without being happy, at least he was numb. But what else can he do? 

"I don't want-" he is about to repeat when Dany saves the pitiful statement that matters not anymore.

"Then, what do you want?"

Silence.

"What?"

"What do you want? These days you only come to me when you need to ask for something."

"Dany," he begs, but she stands up and raises a hand to warn him she is not up to tolerate him anymore.

"I will guess it. I have had practice. You want me to forgive Tyrion, Sansa, and Arya, who has done nothing yet but will if I harm Sansa." 

Yes, in part that is what he has come to do. Who else would do it if not him, always an intermediary in the midst of conflict.

However, there is more. Every time he had tried to find the familiarity with which they communicate just a few weeks ago, she threw down on them the cloak of distrust and strife.

Jon is tired, bloody tired.

"Very well, Jon," she does not wait for his response.

"I don't know what else I could do. I acted as best as I could to let them understand I will not betray you and that I choose you as my Queen." It was not enough. Nothing he does is enough for any of them. "I will marry you. We can unite our claims and-,"

And that's the last mistake he makes. 

Dany turns her back on him, and climbs the steps to the Iron Throne, turning one last time and sitting down without looking him in the eye. He realizes too late that there is nothing to save because when he should have, he let all the good they had die.

"You did not respond to my question, Lord Snow," she asks with the tone she reserved to her servants. "What. Do. You. Want?" she emphasizes each word.

In that dispute between their wounded pride, Jon did not shy away. He walked closer and lifted his face to look one last time for something other than resentment and apprehension.

"I want peace," he replies, finally. "I do not want to have to choose sides, anymore." It had felt good for a moment to think that everyone could be on the same side, he remembers. "We all make mistakes. Tyrion has faith in you, I have faith in you-,"

Dany scoffs.

"Faith? Do you even have faith in something?" she retorts, and it hurts him. With earnestness she continues, "I saved your life several times, I sacrificed everything to serve in the Great War but yet, it was not enough for you, for him or for Sansa." She makes a pause, tightening her arms on the throne's armrests. "Or for Varys, who already alerted the other Kingdoms about your heritage and your claim."

Jon lets out a sigh.

"You almost weep for him, the man who wanted you to turn on me and yet you want me to believe that having you by my side will suffice." She shakes her head with discouragement. "Tyrion once called me naive for believing I could change things by simply wanting to change it but you've outdone me, Jon."

"Dany, I want to be here for you," he tells her sincerely. At least, a part of him does not want to let her go. 

"That's not what you want," she affirms.

"It is."

Silence again.

"I do not believe you," she says what he fears the most. "I do not trust in you," she reiterates, "You and _your_ family are a threat and any other person in my stead would execute the whole pack of you and would be doing the right thing."

He knows that. He is aware of the prerogatives that she has granted over and over to bring about concord, even to the detriment of her own well-being. Gods, she has lost so much and gained so little. He can see and feel in his own flesh that she is not happy and will not be. And mayhaps that is the reason why even though she is hurting him and he is hurting her, still he feels admiration, caring and love for her. 

"I love you, Dany," he says when there's nothing else to say. It's late as it was the first time he confessed that. 

"You fear me," Dany points out, startling him a little, "And I told you I've chosen fear." 

_So be it_ , he thinks. _Let it be fear and end this whole thing_.

"You are thinking I will do it, that I will hurt you" she croaks at him, twitching her mouth in that fashion of hers to reproach someone's else fault. "See how I am not enough for you? See how it does not matter how much mercy I show, you all are going to see nothing but fear?" 

Dany stands again and leaves the throne behind as she approaches Jon with urgency. 

"If this is my destiny, then let it be fear," she remarks, cruelly, knowing each word is a dagger through their hearts.

She turns around to leave, but before she announces with resolve and not place to opposition what is her last demand from him.

"You will take the black again. If you want to live free with the wildlings, no one shall stop you. There you will find peace and you will not be choosing between your sisters and me," when she is about to abandon him there, she waits as if wanting to say something and restraining herself from doing so. "I promise you, Sansa, Arya, and Bran will live and that's everything I could give you, you have taken everything and I can give you no more."

***

_When was the last time I've been this alone?_ Dany wonders again, and again. She forces herself to eat but everything that touches her mouth tastes insipid.

She takes a chamber in a long-forgotten, dim-lightened wing, where the darkness can engulf the images in her mind of her children, and her friends, all of them turned into ghosts. It's incredible how she thought she would not survive to do this again, cry in the embrace of solitude as her life keeps falling in shreds around her. 

_I've cried alone when Viserys beat me. I cried alone when Khal Drogon raped me. I have cried alone several times and I will have to learn to cry alone for several more._

A knock on the door pulls her out of her misery. She knows it could only be him. There's literally no other person that would appear at her door. And some nights ago, it could have meant something but now it just means nothing.

Grey Worm insinuated she should start to be more careful and has grown wary of Jon. She understands the feeling and almost share it. Is she a fool for believing that he will not even dare? Is she a stupid, little girl as Viserys used to call her? Might she is.

"I cannot sleep," is Jon's excuse to step inside the quarter. He used to be so careful and respectful but now even she can feel the awkwardness he oozes. 

"You will not find it here," she warns her, not as if he had insinuated something else but because it's true. He wants the sort of peace of mind she cannot provide.

The two stand on opposite sides of the room, waiting for the space to stop feeling so real at some point. If she had more courage, she would confess that his mere presence is harmful to her.

"It is not fear," Jon breaks the silence, "Yes, I feared, but not to you but to me doing something wrong." He approaches but Dany back up and averts his gaze. It's amazing how needing him so much makes her realize that needing him was a mistake. 

Noticing this, he also steps back, "I couldn't see I was actually hurting you." 

Dany stills, crossing her arms over her chest and seeking to protect herself from him.

"I love you," he continues after waiting for her to say something, futilely, "I was afraid _that_ was blinding me. Sansa, Sam, Arya, Varys, and Tyrion with his actions, they all were telling me to distrust you and I ended up letting my trust and love for them blinding me. And that's my mistake." 

His statement makes Dany recoil further away from him. She has come to think that he never loved her in the first place. That is what she wants to tell him, but she is more afraid to make that statement real than to recognize it herself.

"But you did not care." 

"What?"

It is there that she looks at his face. 

"Have you even ask me how I feel?"

Dany let out a burst of short, ironic laughter.

"You won't even speak to me!"

"How can I? The woman I love is also the little sister of my father. The man I admired and call my father was actually my uncle who didn't care to send me to the Night's Watch to secure the murderer of my true father on the throne," he shouts, annoyed, "Have you even stopped to think about all those things?"

She did, but the moment she saw him celebrate with his loved ones and forget about her so thanklessly, only resentment prevailed in her heart. Not because he no longer loved her, but because he dared not say it all at once and allow them both to walk different paths. Which made Dany have to resolve the issue for both of them.

"Jon, I saw my children die, my people risking their lives for your ungrateful people, the man who's been with me for years dying in my arms and my best friend losing her head in front of me, _shut your fucking mouth!_ " she has never cursed this way in front of him, and much less _to_ him. That's why he is left thunderstruck. 

Dany takes a deep breath and continues, "I know your pain is great, I know I made a mistake in not asking you first how you feel but you had a family, you had a _fucking_ castle and food, and security while all I had was fear, pain, abuse and all of that because Rhaegar loved your mother and chose her over all of us." She is turning the exchange into a competition but she cannot help it. Until then, she has not dared to admit something both of them already know. He has chosen. 

Her last bit about his parents overflows the cup. He notices her implication. 

"So that's how you see me? That's how low you think of me?"

He sounds distraught, even more than before.

"I do," there's no way in denying it. "As you do think low of me." 

Jon nods, in the way someone lets the other person win the argument out of exhaustion. 

"If we marry-,"

With the little patience she has left, Dany shortens the distance between them, looking at his worn-out eyes. From there, even though the dim light, Dany can see how consuming the whole thing was for him.

"If we marry you will never find your peace here," she tells him with a softer tone; leaving behind her combative one. She swallows. "If we marry I will have to live knowing you stayed in the name of honor and duty, and I have humiliated myself enough." 

Then Dany ends up giving in to her momentum until there are only inches between them.

"When you found out the truth, you stopped wanting me. But you did not stop being Jon Snow, the bastard of Winterfell. It's not that you don't want the Iron Throne. You don't want _this_ , you don't want the name and you don't want to be here."

In the blink of an eye, Dany is at the door, making room for him to leave. He left the matter up to her and she did her best. It hurts now and will hurt more tomorrow, she knows, but it was better to learn to accept a painful truth than to live a lie

Before stepping into the corridor and out of her life, he stands in front of her and asks, "If you have to choose between the Iron Throne and me, what would you choose?"

She laughs bitterly again.

"Ask Sansa."

***

She walks through the inner courtyard where Cersei and Jaime Lannister were found weeks ago and stands still looking at the painted map of Westeros.

 _Is this how Cersei spent her time?_ she wonders, looking at the map and locked in these four walls so as not to suffer the consequences of her actions? Now she understood how someone could be so bitter and full of evil.

With her missives in hand and several accounting rolls under her arm, that the seneschal has collected from the office of Cersei's former hand, Dany walks towards the meeting room of the small council, where a table too large awaits her that only highlights the absences in her life.

This is how she spends her days.

It turns out that Cersei, despite not moving a finger for the good of the people, did leave a diligent man in charge of the Realm's affairs. Qyburn, his name was, but he died at being left in the middle of the fight between the Clegane brothers. A loyal man, who served Cersei until his last breath.

Daenerys found herself yearning for that kind of loyalty. However, she has to settle with herself. If she has no faith in herself, how can she expect others to do so?

She has nothing and none but her power and herself.

 _It will have to be enough_ , she thinks. _I am enough_. 


	2. II. A Gentle Heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for your support with this one💖hope you like it.
> 
> In my other story, I characterized Jon from the trauma. In this story, such trauma does not happen so I tried going down a simpler path and having him deal with his identity and what the future might hold for him, now there is relative peace in his life. It's a whole other perspective and I hope that I had portrayed a different version of him here.
> 
> Ch.3 it's just an epilogue I'll try to post today.

Had I known that the heart  
breaks slowly, dismantling itself   
into unrecognizable plots of  
misery,

Had I known the heart would leak,  
slobbering its sap, with a vulgar  
visibility, into the dressed-up  
dining rooms of strangers,

Had I known that solitude could  
stifle the breath, loosen the joint,  
and force the tongue against the  
palate,

Had I known that loneliness could  
keloid, winding itself around the  
body in an ominous and beautiful  
cicatrix,

Had I known yet I would have loved  
you, your brash and insolent beauty,  
your heavy comedic face  
and knowledge of sweet  
delights,

But from distance   
I would have left you whole and wholly   
for the delectation of those who   
wanted more and cared less.

– Maya Angelou, Prescience.

**II. A Gentle Heart.**

He sails to White Harbor escorted by two sworn brothers from the Night's Watch that he hardly remembers having seen at Winterfell during the Great War. However, neither of them questions him when he decides to march towards the Stark's ancestral home one last time.

Of course, as Daenerys anticipated, Lord Varys made sure that every Great House left in Westeros becomes aware of the secret that, until recently, was more than buried and dead. Before his soldiers hear the news, Jon informed Ser Davos of his agreement with Dany and left without further ado.

A part of him waited for her to stop him and give him a reason to stay. She did not. Why would she? Everything that happened between them was so sudden that when it ended, it was as if they could not recognize in each other more than pain. And the gods know that she is fully within her rights to want him away.

 _This is the right thing_ , he pleads with himself to understand. He could never be who she needs by her side. And he longed for a little peace, which he would not find in the south constantly representing a threat to her rule.

War brought them together and now that it's over, they were over.

 _It's okay. You did what you had to do. You honored your word. Now you rest_.

He repeats and repeats in his mind as if it could bring relief.

Oh, but there would be no rest until dealing with one last affair.

The castle was heavily guarded. Why? he asks himself. There is no longer any threat of any kind, neither from the North nor from the South. Sansa is relentless when it comes to creating the ideal hostile environment to place herself in. Until then, Jon has passed her misgiving for wariness to the point she took his loyalty and love for weakness. He's shown nothing but respect toward her position and she's done everything in her power to undermine him and the harmony he tried to obtain. It's enough for him. By telling Tyrion a truth that doesn't belong to her, any respect and affection for her as his sister has died. For Jon, Sansa is not more than Lady Catelyn's child now. 

He's meet by Bran ominous stare at the courtyard. Jon attempts to smile at him but it feels forced. His presence in Winterfell feels foreign more than ever.

"Where is Sansa?"

Jon finds her in the Great Hall, sitting on the place he and Daenerys occupied some weeks ago. It's amazing to him how much a place can signify to people.

"I heard the news," she speaks without staring at him. She sounds sullen as if she has been waiting for another type of news. "Lord Hightower summoned a meeting to address the matter." Her face turns and meets him. "We have a new Queen."

"We had a new Queen the moment I bent the knee to her," he growls, easing the fever inside him that wanted to shout out a number of words he surely will regret after. "We had a new Queen the moment she pledged her armies and put herself in danger for you to have a castle to sit down and do nothing but manipulate things on your favor, not caring what about other people's life."

She stands, icy and impassive eyes.

"You have the right to hate me all you want. But you saw it, and you felt it. She's volatile, she leaves only chaos wherever she goes. How much before something annoys her enough to unleash all her power over us? over you?"

"Sansa, shut your mouth!" Jon screams, stirring at the few guards and Ser Brienne who never leave Sansa's side. "What kind of person are you? How can't I saw it before? You were up to sacrifice your honor and expose me as a fool before her in order to what? An assumption backed by nothing but your greed?"

"It's not greed!" this last bit offended her enough to start showing some humanity, "It's our home, the sacrifices of our father and Robb!"

"Father fought for Robert! He took this secret to the grave and let me go to the Night's Watch so I would never represent a threat to his rule. When the time came, he was up to recognize Stannis Baratheon as King. And Robb? The same people that named him King then betrayed him or give us the back when we needed them the most!" he is deranged with anger. His fist hurting from the clenching. "What both of them had said of you after what you've done? Father used to say we find our friends in the battlefield and guess what Sansa when we had to take Winterfell back, you were not there until it was convenient for you and in the Great War, you hid in the crypts while Dany risked her people, her children, and her own life to protect Winterfell!"

People around them stand insecure and eye between them in search of an answer. It's greatly uncomfortable to witness an argument between family. But for Jon, at that moment he realizes he doesn't see Sansa in that sense anymore. 

He fucking hates her.

He chose to be loyal to them and share the secret that stained their parent's marriage and, in exchange, she doomed his relationship with Daenerys. 

_"I do not believe you."_

_"I do not trust in you."_

She said and then sent him away, not even caring about what he was telling her. His words mean nothing to her because he chose to take Sansa's into consideration before her warnings.

"Jon," she swallows hard and rests her hands on the table. "I'm sorry. I hope someday you can give me your pardon but you are in love with her not seeing beyond that." She returns to stand upright with her hands intertwined behind her back. "She's not even considering you and your position. Had she proposed a marriage alliance? Not! She shunned you away and now that the other lords know about you, she sends you to the Wall."

"Haven't you heard a single word about what I've said the day I shared you the truth? I DON'T WANT THE IRON THRONE. I fought for getting her on it because I believe in her and I'm not a stupid as you think me, I do see she's a capable ruler and my feelings have nothing to do with it. And she fucking deserves it. While you hid information from me, and let me go to the battle against Ramsey without the numbers, Dany risked her children to save me and lost one of them because of it. Then, instead of blaming me, she pledged her forces to the Great War asking anything in return. And when she had all the right to make of you or all the traitors around her what she did with Lord Varys, you know what she did? She sat on the steps of the Iron Throne and cried. So yes, sending me to the Wall is the right thing. I have brought her nothing but woe and now, you will do your part and bend the knee to your rightful queen-,"

"I will not bend the knee to her-," she interrupts with disdain but he's already raising his voice to make himself clear.

"You will! Because if you do not, I make sure every single person in the North finds out Ned Stark's daughter broke a sacred oath made before the Heart Tree. And you know what happens with Oathbreaker Sansa."

Silence reigned until her lips trembled. 

"Jon," she whispers. "Jon, you can't do this. We are your family."

"We?" he scoffs. "We, who? Who are you? Who is Bran? Who is Arya? All of you are nothing but strangers to me. I did nothing but love and care for you, and now I am where I started, going North to the Wall because there's no other path for a bastard like me."

Sansa backs up, scandalized. 

"You are the rightful heir," she attempts to remember him. In truth, remembering who he was now is what torments him.

"No," he denies, "I am nothing but a toy for your stupid, little games but now I'm done. I wished you good fortune on your new position, Lady of Winterfell and Warden of the North. Because you'll find nothing but misery there."

When he leaves Great Hall, he is resolved to never return.

***

As snow melts and the earth warms, Daenerys notices that winter fades as fast as it comes, leaving its trace in the air, too thick now to allows her to move forward. But she does it. She has to do it. She's burden with the possibility to grant a better chance to those whose lives have been upended by the turmoil of war. More than ever, she needs to reborn from the ashes of her old life.

The Realm's affairs absorb most of her time. 

She is still getting to know the capital and evaluating the damage caused by famine. Beyond the walls, she had achieved relative peace for the Seven Kingdoms.

As expected, Varys made sure to expose Jon's true identity to the fullest extent possible. After this latter departure, Ser Davos stayed to assist her and command the northern troops as they ousted the remaining Lannisters. Something Daenerys had to recognize was their loyalty and obedience. Once the truth reached King's Landing, they kept in line until a meeting with the members of the Great Houses took place and it was decided -very harmoniously-, Jon's claim could not jeopardize hers since, he himself pledged to her, and because, very obviously, Dorne would refuse to recognize his legitimacy as Rhaegar's son. 

Contrary to what she feared, common sense indicated them Daenerys was the best choice. Her claim and lineage is undeniable, her influence on Essos necessary and Drogon's power unquestionable. Even Sansa Stark spoke for her, evasively and unconvincingly, but acknowledging that while the rest of the kingdoms ignored the call for help in the North, Daenerys and her troops were essential for the victory. 

Daenerys could sense the hurt pride and bitterness in every word she spoke, a far cry to the arrogant, cold woman she met at Winterfell. She didn't know nor probe into her motivations to change her idea of an independent North but whatever that happened, she was grateful for not having to find a way to keep her in line through methods that could affect Jon's tranquility. 

No one bowed their knee but stood up and proclaimed in unison,

" _Long Live Queen Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Realm_."

None of those voices mattered to her. Daenerys realized she would never again hear Missandei's sweet voice recite the titles that mattered most to her.

Mother of Dragons, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea or Breaker of Chains.

Without Jorah, without Missandei, without the loyal and brave men that followed her, and were gone now, she was none of those things. And without Jon, none else would call her Dany.

So, she becomes Queen at the expense of everything she already was.

***

In Castle Black, Tormund and his people, a very low number of survivors of the free folk, planned to march North and resettle in what's left of their previous homes. 

"Ya' shall come with us," Tormund encouraged him. "Ya' got the truth north right there and now it's safe to explore what those bastards left us."

Jon laughed and considered his offer for days until finally, he decided the more north he goes the safest Daenerys' rule would be. 

He'd be lying if he says he hasn't thought about her, at all. Jon does it all the time. 

At least she's safe, he tells himself. But she's on her own, every single person that surrounded her is now dead or has betrayed her. He can't help but think about what she would do now? 

Jon received news from Winterfell that tells Daenerys was recognized a Queen by the Great Lords of the Seven Kingdoms and now was sitting in Red Keep, ruling as she always been. 

Sansa obeyed his command and that was a relief. Dany named her Warden of the North and their mutual animosity was sweep under the carpet. He's done his best to achieving peace between them, and Dany has acted accordingly, so now it all depends on Sansa. He really wishes for Winterfell and the North to do well.

The day he's supposed to leave the Wall, Jon wanders Castle Black the last time. Somehow he ends in Maester Aemon's former chamber, dusty but untouched as it time had stopped there. How many times he'd come here in search of advice? He was his great-uncle. Jon would do anything for a last one.

As if the Gods could listen to him, Jon feels as if he couldn't leave the chamber. He roams the space in search of something that he might take with him to the true north, a little token mayhaps, of the family he didn't know he had. 

On the ancient shelves, he finds books, tomes, and scrolls too heavy and long for him to take the time to read them. A memory comes to him then.

_"I knew one of yours," he told her on very late night on the boat. Dany turned and stared at him. "a Targaryen."_

_She looked amazed but confused at the same. Her brow clouded._

_"Maester Aemon," he explained._

_He told her everything about him. On his old age and resilience, and how he, like her, had been a close friend of a Mormont, frequently this latter resorting to his advice, as Jon did later. Above all, he tells her that it was his vote that made him Lord Commander of the Night's Watch._

_"He saw what everyone who knows you eventually see," she said with a smile, "that you are a great leader."_

_Luckily she hid her face in his neck again when he blushed._

_"He knew about me?" she inquired, her voice soft and fine as a little girl._

_Jon could neither affirm nor deny it. The news across the sea were so sporadic that they sounded more like a story._

_That night he heard her sob in her dreams, and like all the other times she needed him, Jon failed to deliver some comfort. At the time it was as if he couldn't find the words, and usually, they would come when they had left the matter behind. And later, he was full of doubts._

A stupid coward, he curses in his mind, returning to the present. 

He rubs his forehead and throws himself back onto the bed. As soon as he does this, he hears a crack under his weight. Jon gets up and checks if he has broken the bed due to the sudden movement but realizes that it is not a crack but a thud. The inside of the bed has hit something underneath it. He bends down to find a box, rather a heavy wooden chest underneath it. He doesn't know whether to open it or leave it there, but his curiosity is greater than his modesty.

He removes the dust from above the sigil that decorates the lid. The three-headed dragon. He notes he must have carried this from home, so many years ago when he first came to the Night's Watch. It has a padlock so if he wants to see its content he must break it, which is something he shouldn't even consider but he does it. He takes Longclaw and opens it.

Back on the floor, Jon checks its interior and finds parchment, many pieces of it with its dry writing.

Letters.

Rolls.

Broken seals.

He knows Aemon couldn't see in the last stages of his life, so they must be old ones or something someone else wrote for him.

_Sam. Sam was his steward. Didn't he know about this?_

He proceeds to satiate his curiosity and dig a little deeper, his mind birthing the desire to be with Dany or deliver this to her.

His heart skips a beat when he reads 'Rhaegar' there and there, not pausing too long to read the entire contents of the letters. It is another name that he reads that catches his attention.

' _Daenerys_ '

He takes this piece and reads it, knowing he shouldn't. Once he's done the only thing in his mind is a question.

_"He knew about me?"_

***

"Will you kill my sister?"

Dany was aware that Arya Stark was still hanging around Red Keep, even if they never crossed paths. Daenerys believes is her bond with Jon that stops the young girl to commit any threatening action towards her. 

"I would be a very unintelligible woman if I do so," Dany answers, hunched on the soil and moving the earth in the rightest places. It was late afternoon when the girl presented to her in the gardens. Dany had learned to avoid the shadows hanging over her mind by immersing herself in the joys of gardening. Although those were not auspicious times, she planted some lemon seeds there. No amount of lemon trees would make Red Keep turn into the big house with the red door, but at least her mind would no longer wander those bleak places that only makes her weak.

Dragons plant no trees, she knows. For dragons are wonderful, intelligent creatures that can't be forced to do what they don't want. And she has chosen to serve the Realm, for what she cannot afford her feelings to reign her resolve.

"You exiled Jon, why? He loved you and fought for you," she questions, causing that Dany to stir and turn around to assess Arya's face.

"You know your brother better than me, Lady Stark. Where do you think he will be most happy? here where people would torture him to turn on me, or there where are the people and the place he loves?"

Arya frowns and insists, "But he _loves_ _you_."

Daenerys shakes her hands and allows one of the servants to pour water on them. On those cold and snowy days, she has to wear thick garments that make it difficult for her to move. She should be using gloves but she's tired of them.

"Your sister and I, we were just making him suffer," she justifies, not willing to dive in her relationship with Jon with her.

"I still believe he deserves better than be up there without his family. He committed no crime."

Dany sits on the edge of the flowerbed's wall and waits for Arya to imitate her, but the girl stands in front of her with her arms crossed behind her, in a gesture that reminds her of Sansa herself and that Daenerys identified as a way to keep their motivations hidden.

It is not her style, she liked to put her hands in front of her.

"He's not far away from Winterfell," Dany remarks, "The free folk are his people and might he could start his own family there."

Although her heart aches at the idea, a part of her mind always knew her greatest wish was the restoration of her House. And someday, perhaps, she would have to fly to the Wall to find her heir. Who knows.

Arya snorts out of exasperation.

"Why didn't you let me kill Cersei?" she changes the subject, "She killed your dragon and your friend, would you let their deaths go unpunished?"

The mention of Rhaegal and Missandei breaks her tender heart into a thousand pieces. As much as she avoids their ghosts, Dany always loses and sees them again.

Instead of crying, she stands and starts walking, certain that Arya will follow close behind.

After long minutes of silence, Dany speaks, "I was the womb of my mother when Robert Baratheon ordered my death. He did it when I have a child in my own womb, who later died because a witch killed him when he still was inside me." She turns and finds Arya's eyes softening. "It's something I cannot do," she assures, kicking a small mountain of snow in front of her. "But Cersei will die."

Arya nods.

"Let me be the one to execute her," she requests but Daenerys has granted that wish to another person already. 

"She killed your father?" she dodges her request. 

"She is the last name on my list."

"Your list?"

The young Stark's face darkens at what seems like a nefarious and unhappy memory.

"When I was a child, running away and lost, crying and sleeping on cold grounds under the rain, all I could do to keep going is to repeat their names until all I would think about it's in finishing my list." She beams while staring at a lost point. "And I did it, I ended most of them."

Dany puts the matter aside because it seems like a delicate subject. If they were more confident, she would have told her that no revenge was going to return what was taken from her. However, who was she to judge Arya Stark, and who was Arya to judge Daenerys? They were all broken and doomed not to find what they were looking for.

"You slept on the street?" Dany asks.

"Streets," Arya corrects, "in different places."

"Which ones you liked the most?"

Arya stills in her place.

"Excuse me?"

"I used to favor the earthy streets because it was softer than cobblestone, but it was icky and then my body would..."

"Itch," she finishes for her, a slight smile appearing on her face. "Don't you ever put straw on it to imagine for a second it was a barn?"

Dany let out small laughter and affirms. Viserys used to do that.

"You slept in Braavos' streets, right? I did it too for a time."

It shouldn't be funny but it is for them. The damage was already perpetrated, so only the memories remained.

That night, they sup together and Daenerys decides to address something more serious with her.

"Why Sansa wants to be Queen in the North?" she begins with that question. 

Arya stops chewing and earnestness darkens her expression as a kind of warning that if Daenerys tries something, their fragile agreement will end.

"My brother Robb fought for independence, she wants to honor his wish."

"Jon told me Robb rebelled against the Crown for the assassination of your father. He never wanted a crown," Dany rebuts, equally challenging than the girl. "In the same way, Jon never wanted a crown and I would've never wanted a crown if it wasn't because I know I could make something good with it."

Arya, who appears to be the type who is also not interested in royalty and political affairs, nods.

"My sister is a good ruler, she will make a good queen," she assures but it sounds more of a wish than a certainty. 

The issue of Northern independence came to a standstill with everything that had happened in between. Some Lords wanted to question Jon's decision to renounce his birthright in favor of her, but the moment they remembered how effective Daenerys could be above Drogon, and with the advent winter, those cravings had lessened and transformed into resignation.

However, Daenerys could not allow Sansa to continue acting recklessly without suffering any consequences.

"It will be a harsh winter, Arya. I have to spend all my resources in improving the lives of the people, I cannot afford another war and I cannot risk my last child. I have sacrificed too much that I barely have something left. She still rules, with the benefit of the southern resources. Why does she need to antagonize me?"

Arya's expression softens when she asks herself the same question and doubt invades her mind.

"She's been through a lot," Arya tries to justify.

"I know," Dany cuts her off, "Do you think I married willingly to my husband? I was sold by my brother."

And if they walk a few steps outside the castle, they would find a thousand and one different stories of how horrible life has been for other women, but that was not the point.

"What do you want from me, Daenerys?"

Dany wipes her mouth with a napkin and gets up to retire to her chambers, where another night of little sleep and many thoughts awaited her. As she passes by Arya's side, she squeezes her shoulder.

"Go back to Winterfell, Arya. You still have a family there and Cersei is already dead."

***

Her children's death is a recurring nightmare that continues to hurt her memory and waking her in the middle of the night to persecute and torture her. Tyrion's grave mistakes, even when they were exercised under alleged goodwill that Daenerys had no way to prove, had been as detrimental as Cersei's misdeeds. This is the mantra Dany repeats herself the day Cersei gives birth.

"Your grace," the midwife comes to her quarters after the process, carrying the small bundle of agitating arms. "She is a girl, your grace." 

Daenerys would have wanted to be a better person, better than Cersei and everyone who hurt her so much. She searched in the innermost places of her heart but there were only cracked spaces, pieces that would never find its pair. So, Dany did not allow Cersei to hold the girl. The maids recounted that she screamed the name 'Joanna' as they carried her back to the dungeons, and although her heart ached, Rhaegal and Missandei's deaths are too recently for her to afford that kind of forgiveness. 

"Hey, precious," Dany hums as she carries the little baby. She got all the Lannister's trait, from the golden hair and the light green eyes. 

She allowed Tyrion to keep Casterly Rock but his niece will remain by her side. So, both of them, she and Tyrion, could share the taste of this tragic end; living in the place they always wished to possess and nothing else.

A day after giving birth, Cersei is taken to the stone parapets to be executed. Torgo Nudho is in charge of carrying out the task, while Arya Stark remains in the public watching with some indifference.

Daenerys forces Tyrion to witness it all, allowing him to approach her and give her one last comfort by placing his hand on her cheek and slides in a soft caress to her neck, whispering a few parting words to her before watching in pain as Grey Worm rips her head off her body.

 _You wanted the deaths of my son and Missandei to go unpunished_ , she thinks in her mind, not looking at Cersei when it happens but at Tyrion. _This is all your fault Tyrion_.

"Did you feel something?" she later asks Arya Stark.

Jon's cousin-sister shrugs.

Weeks later, when Torgo asks her permission to go to Naath to carry Missandei's ashes, she more than happy agrees although in her heart she knows that he has no intention to ever return.

***

The day he returns, Daenerys was attending a farmer from Dragonstone complaining about Drogon tormenting his cattle. Lately, her lonely son spent more and more time away from her, perhaps looking for the old nests his brothers and him had left on the island. Like his mother, he had known nothing but tragedy. Dany listened patiently and provided the man with adequate compensation to allay his grief before receiving the announcement that _he_ was in Red Keep and had requested an audience with her. 

She asks for him to be taken to her solar for more privacy, although she does not know what matter may have brought him to the capital so soon without giving any prior notice.

Of course, it is a mistake, because there she finds Jon, leaning over the cradle of little Joanna, with tears in his eyes, imagining a scenario that is not and will never be.

"It's not what you think," Dany clarifies in a rush. "She is Cersei's child, Joanna."

He wipes his face and put himself together while Dany evaluates his appearance. He didn't look bad, and that contents her. He wears the garments of the sworn brothers of the Night's Watch, although she knows he did not take any vow this time.

That Order doesn't even exist anymore.

"Your grace," he greets.

"Lord Snow," she returns, "Why I have the honor of your visit?" A sudden chill runs through Daenerys' spine. "Please, don't tell me they came back-,"

"No," Jon states, serious. He is nervous and avoiding her stare. "Can we seat?"

Daenerys orders tea to be served on the balcony and instructs him to walk there. Unlike some time ago, seeing him no longer hurts her the same way. However, there is still a longing in her heart that never ceases. She has told herself, day after day that she has to placate it, but it is like walking amidst a blizzard.

When everything is settled, they both sit and stare at the city below them. It hurts her to remember the day she came here for the first time, but she rejoices in the thought that could have been worse. Her life has been reduced to thinking that things could be worse.

Thinking, thinking and thinking, all she does is thinking.

"Why is she here?" Jon asks finally.

She stirs in her seat, knowing what he is going to think of her when she tells him that she keeps her there as a kind of punishment against Tyrion. 

"She born here," and since then, Dany couldn't keep her away from her. 

"I understand," Jon says, "Lord Stark raised Theon as his ward."

Dany tilts her head and asks, "What are you doing here, Jon?"

He probably should have started there. Explaining what could be so important that a letter was not enough.

"I heard that things were going well for the Realm," he gives a light reply.

"Not as much as I would like," Dany rebuts. She still had to deal with the succession in Highgarden, the new Prince of Dorne's rebuffs, and many places in Westeros that needed her attention when she couldn't even finish solving the famine at King's Landing.

"It's better than before," Jon says but all his actually meaning is that at least there's no war.

 _It's not enough_ , she thinks. _I'm not enough_.

That's the kind of feeling he invokes in her. 

"For the first time in years who sits in the ugly chair is someone who cares," he continues. It is as if he had pushed her off a cliff and the clash against the water had broken all her bones. Her body trembles and she doesn't realize she's sobbing until Jon is by her side. "Dany," he calls her. 

_Jorah_ , she remembers. 

" _You have a good claim, a title, a birthright. But you have something more than that: you may cover it up and deny it, but you have a gentle heart. You would not only be respected and feared, you would be loved_."

But she is not loved.

 _Missandei_.

" _I can only tell you what I have seen, your grace. I have seen you listen to your counselors. I have seen you lean on their experience when your own was lacking and weigh the choices they put before you. And I have seen you ignore your counselors because there was a better choice. One that only you could see_."

But she ignored her own instinct to listen to Tyrion, to listen to Jon and when she needed them the most they failed her. And Missandei died. Grey Worm is gone.

There is nothing left but ruins.

"I'm sorry, it's just that," Dany raises a hand to alert her guards everything is fine, standing up and leaning against the stone rails of the balcony. She cannot see him at his eye and speak without breaking. "I wish I could do better and more. l never expected it to be easy. However, I thought it would be home. In Dragonstone, I felt the same. _Nothing_. This was supposed to be home and it's just nothing again."

It is not the red house and the lemon tree what Dany wants now, but her children, Jorah, Missandei, Ser Barristan, she could even see Daario Naharis and rejoice, because it would remind her of a simpler time where she had hope, and that hope was more powerful than anything else.

Until she met _him_ and hope turned into desire. Then her goal was no longer just the Iron Throne but everything that involved Jon. 

She does not put the blame on him however, there was no longer anything for her when he still had a chance for something. She won the game of thrones and lost everything else.

She hears him returning to the solar to drag a chest that she did not notice that he brought with him. It is medium in size but not heavy so he cannot carry it up to the table where their tea has been forgotten.

"This was in Castle Black," he explains, "In Master Aemon's chambers. It belonged to him."

Dany moves forward and appreciates the object, running her fingertips through the delicate design of House Targaryen’s sigil. Not even in Red Keep’s vaults has she found anything so dainty of her family’s belongings. Robert took care of getting rid of everything meaningful.

She’s speechless. Fearful at what she could find inside.

“What’s in there?” she asks Jon.

“You should see it yourself,” he encourages but then halts her, “but first, there’s something else you should know. Here.” He takes off his garments a little piece of rolled parchment and extends it to her.

Dany unrolls it and finds a letter addressed to her.

_Queen Daenerys:_

_Your grace, it’s my honor to be able to speak with you thought it’s not the way I would’ve wished. The more likely it’s that, when you receive this, I’ll be long gone from this temporal existence. I’ve no much time left to say everything I should say. An apology, first, for the great tribulation in your life. The ones of the past, the ones of the present and the ones to come. How many times I’d desire to be able to do more for you and for your brother Viserys. My regret shouldn’t be an excuse._

_Dear niece, dear Queen across the Sea. How would’ve we imagined a little girl like you could’ve been destined to be our salvation? Mother of dragons and Mhysa of the freemen. When I hear news about you, it’s like reading again those long letters of your late brother, Rhaegal. You are the one we were waiting for._

_Daenerys you are our hope. Tell them that that, at the Citadel. Make them listen to you. They must send you a Maester to be counseled, taught, protected. For all these years I’ve lingered, waiting, watching, and now that the day has dawned, I am too old. I am dying._

_I keep you in my thoughts always Daenerys. When the time comes, I know you will achieve great things. Here in the Night's Watch, there's a young man, Jon Snow, that is serving a great purpose like you. You should come and listen to what he needs to tell you._

_Your great-uncle and server, Aemon of House Targaryen._

She takes her eyes off the parchment and sits down again. So, he knew about her.

"Why did this letter never reach me? I would have come to him!" she claims. 

He was the last piece of her family. He could have told her things about them that were not greatly embellished with fantasies as Viserys' stories nor the atrocities everyone else tells. She could have shown him her children. 

"No," Jon stutters his answer, "I swear I don't know. I didn't know...It was Sam. I have to ask him why, but I don't know Dany. A lot happened on the day of his death. I–"

She interrupts his explanation and goes to open the chest. Inside there are many more letters and loose things. Words. She has only words of her last relative.

Well, not the last one.

"Have you read them?" she inquires.

Jon looks at her puzzled.

"Only the one with your name on it. I don't–" He swallows hard, "This belongs to you."

"Why?" she claims, "Why it should belong to me more than it does to you?"

"Because I have been with him, I have been able to see and hear him."

She nods between tears falling down her cheeks.

"It is as if everything I have ever wanted life has given you twice as a damn gift." She sounds bitter and vindictive. “Things you don’t even want.”

"I don't want you to hate me," he says with pain. "I've been hated by reasons that escaped my control in the past, please don't do this to me."

It is as if she had been pushed to the ground and the fall made her realize what she was doing.

"I don't hate you," she says with a calmer voice, "I envy you."

She feels she has nothing more to lose or gain by admitting it. Turning her eyes back to the chest and the letters inside. Would she feel closer to her family after reading all of them?

"Dany, I don't want to leave."

 _Not again_ she pleads silently, shaking her head as if she wanted to shun away the memories, the pain and the notion of what he is implying at the moment.

Jon is implacable; notwithstanding Dany's disbelief, he does not hesitate this time.

"We hurt each other, you told me you did not trust in me and that I was a threat so I yielded and I did as you say." Tenderly, he makes her turn around, so she would look at him. His hand reaches up to her cheek. "For the first time in many years, I was free of worrying about the dead. If that was going to be my life then I thought I should try to live. But I couldn't because every thought in my mind in the morning was you and when I was going to sleep I also wondered if you were feeling the same for me." Between his own tears, he chuckles. "I can't move on because I can't stop loving you." 

At some point, she longed to hear those words, but after that night at Dragonstone, every time she heard them, she felt a knot in her stomach. 

"I am alone, Jon," she shields herself from her, "I am utterly alone. If I start needing you now when you go again-,"

"I want to stay," he cuts her off, "You've learned to survive anything, I know you are strong and I will never doubt you again. But it doesn't mean you have to do this for yourself." 

She still does not believe him. Dany tries, she truly tries but the pang it's still beating. 

Pacing and taking a deep breath, she throws her hair back.

"Did you ask Sansa?"

"No," he replies immediately, "I know what the answer is."

Dany nods.

"I don't care about that ugly chair," Daenerys turns to face him again, "But I care about my duty as Queen and I want to pursue my goals and change the world, improve what my-," she trails off, correcting, " _Our_ family did wrong. So I will stay here as long as I can. This is my duty and I can't leave it." 

"I will never ask you otherwise."

A battle takes place within her, the rational one that asks her not to let him stay, and another that asks her not to let him go.

"You'll be renouncing to your own happiness," she warns. 

He steps further close.

"No. I've been pursuing it."

Or might she's risking the last bit of sanity left. 

"I still..." she mumbles, not daring to be straightforward hostile, "have my doubts about you."

Jon nods and erases the distance between them. One of his hands grips her by the waist and the other rests on the side of her neck, caressing her cheek with his thumb. She allows herself to close her eyes and enjoy his touch.

"I'll be with you, Dany." 

***

It turns out that Drogon is not the one attacking the farmer's cattle but a small, more energetic hatchling Daenerys never thought would see after visiting her son nestle in Dragonstone. She doesn't know if the creature came from Drogon, which would imply he wasn't a _he_ after all, or if it's from Viserion or Rhaegal. Its scales are of dark blue color like a starry night and is constantly following Drogon.

Obviously, the little one doesn't let them get close enough to the nest until it's the size of a medium dog.

"It is incredible the disaster they can make when they are so young," Jon comments when they enter one of the many caves where they mined dragonglass.

Daenerys giggles, kicking a couple of bones from some poor animal that crossed the path of the hatchling.

Their new coexistence is something they still trying to figure out, taking little steps and living day by day. Their romance in the past born in the midst of a war between life and death, and as fast as it came then faded away. This time there's no rush, there's no war and though it's not exactly peace and prosperity, what keeps them moving on it's their desire to provide their help where they can. 

At first, she feared but was ready for the eventual scenario where he could not find his place in King's Landing, and left. Since she had no Hand, she divided her own chores and handed them over to him to do the best out of them. Resolving conflicts between citizens was one of the things he is best at, always finding the middle ground to make everyone content. He also advises her when about the security of the city and the regrouping of armies that would serve under her banner.

Soon, more than a Hand, Jon was already treated as the King consort, even though she is not sure where they are standing.

"Do we need to do this now?" he asks when the hatchling screeches become shrill in a warning.

"It will be more dangerous when he grows up," she replies.

It is obvious that he has to claim this mount. If there is one thing that makes her early reign easier, it is Drogon. Also, she doubts anyone else besides him can do it.

"It was easy with Rhaegal," he recalls, barely glimpsing Dany's face contorted at the mention of her deceased son. "Dany," he stops them, "I'm sorry I wasn't there when it happened."

An implicit rule between them is to leave the past behind and only look to the future, however, there were times when that past became infatuated and needed to return once again to remind Dany of everything she lost.

She just nods. He has asked for forgiveness plenty times before and she has already given it to him. Those who were really guilty of everything, are dead or serving a punishment.

"Just," she must tell him, "Be good to this one."

She does not speak with ill intention but as someone who asks him to appreciate it something valuable and unique.

Jon raises the torch a little more and looks in the direction in front where the screech already announces the presence of the dragon.

"I hope he is good to me, first."

Indeed, the blue dragon allows Jon to approach. Then he tries to champ his hand but they leave the cave before that can escalate. 

***

Joanna splutters in laughter after Dany tickles her with her nose on her little belly. So peaceful sound that she could spend every second of the day there in her company.

Although their bond could be perfectly described as that of a mother and her baby, Dany knows that it is best not to cross that boundary. Her existence was a complete contradiction to the Court and she had been repeatedly advised to please send the girl to Tyrion Lannister.

"If the problem is that she is the daughter of inbred, then you are going to have to erase me and three hundred years of history from Westeros," Daenerys replied.

Someone argued that when she had her own heirs, Joanna would grow up to be an infatuated bastard who craves after what is not hers.

"If that's the case, then she will being a true Lannister," Dany joked, even though the comment has attacked her sensitivity enough to get that person out of Red Keep immediately.

Of course, that type of conversation led to another topic that had her small council anxious: her lack of husband and heirs.

The rule of Daenerys is still seeing as a rare experiment, more for Westerosis whose only past experiences were Rhaenyra and Cersei, both mothers and wives who had proven enough to be able to supply the crown with heirs.

On one occasion, the mention of the possible marriage was brought to her and Jon and it was uncomfortable enough for them not to speak for days. Unlike a year ago, he does not seem keen at the idea and she believes it had to do with the fact that more than family or lovers, they are somewhere between friendship and something else.

There is still the option of marrying someone suitable who had his offspring secured and have Jon to marry a woman who could provide heirs for their house. An idea that makes her sick, it's true, but Jon's reaction was even more visceral when she approached the subject to him.

"Hells not, Dany. I'm not going to be your damn breeding mare!"

That happened a week ago and since then they had not spoken.

As Joanna hummed next to her on the bed, Dany turned on her back to look at the bed canopy, closing her eyes and imagining for a second that the girl next to her had come out of her own womb.

***

The way in which he just gets himself in her quarters was another reason why people did not understand the nature of their relationship.

That morning she had argued with her Master of Coin about his insistence to take another loan with the Iron Bank to refinance the last loan they gave Cersei before they did what the bank knew how to do best: ruin their debtors. So Daenerys is tired and what she least wants is to argue with him.

"The blue dragon flew to my balcony today."

 _Oh_ , she thinks. _So that's it_.

"He accepted you?" she asks with renewed curiosity.

"I don't know. I mean, he let me pet him but I guess I won't know until I can ride him, right?"

"Yes, it's true," she said, finishing messing up the braids in her hair. Since Missandei, she hardly let anyone else touch it. "You should name him."

"Aye," he agrees, "I was thinking in Starry."

"Starry? For a dragon? He's not a pup!"

Jon chuckles and she follows him. It's odd after being so much time without speaking to each other.

Silence. Just a soft wind blowing against the window panes.

She is sitting and he is standing near the fireplace, always in his proper and dutiful posture. 

"Anything else?" she inquires, keeping her necklaces, bracelets and the second ring that is not her mother's, inside a wooden box.

"What are we doing?" he wonders.

"What do you mean?"

"I have told you that I love you. That I have come back to be with you. And although I understand that there is a certain level of confidence that we lost along the way and we are trying to get back, why it does seem that we are never making any progress?"

She looks at him startled.

"I'm giving you the chance to be my equal again, I don't want you to feel like I'm looking down on you-,"

"Daenerys!" He growls, exasperated, this time traversing the steps that separate them and kneeling in front of her to cup her face with his hands. "Dany, I promised you to be here for you and I will always do that. But I need you to tell me where we are and where we are going because I am not going to allow those clowns to come between us as if we were their bloody puppets."

Dany stands up and walks a few steps to the window sill. Outside everything is very calm. No one knows what can happen tomorrow.

"I love you too, and I never stopped doing it and I think I will never stop," she confesses but unable to face him yet. "But what kind of love makes you feel the things that I have felt by your side? Or the things that you have felt with me? What if it is only that that unites us?"

She hears him move behind her, respecting the distance.

"It is not a novelty, after all, that you like to put yourself in miserable situations, I-," she feels the lump in her throat begin to form, "I cannot give you a future, I can hardly live day by day."

"A future with you it's all I envision," he responds, every word closer to her. Dany turns and finds him just inches away.

She frowns.

"You didn't seem to envision anything by my side when we were at Dragonstone," she remembers him, the sting in her core returning. 

At the memory, he walks a few steps back. This time it is Dany who follows him.

"I asked you if I was just your queen and you didn't answer. I kissed you and you stiffened and then you left. I don't want you to feel guilty for feeling what you feel, but don't speak so lightly without being sure of what you want because I can't afford to risk myself to you again. I have a Realm and too many people who still depend on me." Her eyes itch from the tears she's holding back. "I am enough, Jon. I am damn enough."

"Me too," he replies bluntly, taking her by surprise. "I am enough without the titles and the fucking blood running through my veins. I tried to do the right thing for my siblings, but they did not take into account what I wanted and I considered right. I tried to do the right thing for you and you sent me away. No matter how much I do it seems like it's never enough for anyone and I'm sick of living trying to prove...I don't even know what I'm trying to prove. I just want to be happy."

Her heart aches to hear it that way. If it were in her power to deliver the happiness he seeks and not lose herself in the process, Dany would.

"Dany," he walks over to her when he sees fear in her eyes. "Dany, we don't have to prove anything to anyone. It is enough that we are doing our best to help them when for years there were people in this place doing nothing but squander and fight wars for that horrible chair." He takes her face in his hands again and this time she doesn't flinch away. "Just be with me. And let me be with you."

She feels so enraptured as she once felt in his arms. Before the turmoil, it was simply like that. She imagined a life by his side, uncaring about the future. Before him, it was a dull acceptance she was doomed to reign to leave a last trace of her family's legacy behind before disappearing. Any hint of happiness seems destined to slip out of her grasp as she has only met fear as a constant.

He lowers his face to catch her lips with his and kiss her, short and tenderly before Dany could pull away and Jon sigh in defeat.

Before he can leave, Dany takes his hand and leads him to the bed, where she invites him to lie down next to her.

"I'm drowsy, I'm exhausted. Let's go to sleep," she tells him. "We have plenty of time to think."

He obeys without further ado, taking off his boots to follow her and put his arms around her, drawing her close to him.

Everything feels uncertain for both of them but one thing they are sure of is the love they still feel for each other.

If something as simple as sleeping together is possible, why not a life together?

"Jon," she catches his attention one last time.

"Yes?"

"Starry is a silly name for a dragon," she smiles, blowing out the last candle that lit the room. "But I like it."

***

After that night, he does not return to his own bedchamber. If it were up to him, they would already be married just to reassure the people around them. And because it is the right thing, too. However, he does not want to pressure her in any way. Although it would bloody hard for him, he preferred to spend life just being her companion than not having her at all.

By the time Starry reaches the size of a large size horse, two other little dragons roam around Dragonstone, so Dany concludes that her children have laid eggs in various parts of the island. It brings her happiness but at the same time, concern.

"Who's going to take care of them after I'm gone?" she wonders, but before Jon can give her an answer, she changes the subject. "We have to rebuild the Dragonpit, but different. It has to be a place where they can be free and not be a threat to people."

Plans. She makes many plans. Her life consists of working from the first light of day until it hides on the horizon, only to bring a better life to the people. At least, she always says 'we'.

He is not far behind her and follows the frenetic pace, commanding the forces of her army and the City's Watch of King's Landing. 

"The day you rode Rhaegal the first time, you told me that I ruined the horses for you," she tells him one night, curled up against his chest and totally ignorant of how much he had to put his mind elsewhere to hide how much he wanted her after spending so many nights by her side doing barely something "Do you still feel that way?"

"Riding a dragon feels a lot better than riding a horse," he claims.

"Then it's time for you to ride Starry."

The next day, she accompanies him to the top of a hill where Starry rested next to Drogon, the latter, of course, bigger. The blue dragon lifts his neck curiously when he sees them arrive, almost always carrying treats with them.

"We are going to fly to Dragonstone, I need to show you something," she says.

Jon looks up at the cloudy sky; a storm was approaching.

"You haven't done this in a long time," she reminds him as she steps forward and climbs onto Drogon's back. "Do I have to remind you how to do it?"

Starry devours his treat directly from Jon's hand, careful not to lose his arm in the process. Actually, the younger dragon was careful and already recognized him, but caution was never over.

"Holding onto whatever I can," he repeats, frowning with a bit of insecurity starting to cloud his mind.

Dany and Drogon take flight.

He swallows hard and strokes Starry's neck to make sure the dragon agrees with what is about to happen. This time Jon doesn't wear a heavy cloak so it's easier to find a way to climb onto his back.

Once on top, Jon lets out a breath. He has succeeded.

He doesn't have much time to weigh anything else when Starry imitates Drogon and raises his wings to follow him, forcing Jon to quickly grab hold of one of his horns so as not to fall to the ground.

Once in the sky, Starry locates Drogon and follows him. The atmosphere feels so cold that he regrets not having brought a cloak, although under him he finds some warmth in the dragon's scales.

Dany flies with Drogon at least once a day, even if it's just around King's Landing. Now Jon understands why. He closed his eyes and let himself go as the wind hit his face like a soft caress. Perhaps because he is smaller, but Starry is less abrupt in his movements so Jon does not feel himself falling every two seconds.

They land on one of the Dragonstone cliffs.

"And?" Dany asks when he goes down through Starry's shoulder. Before walking towards her, the dragon yells at him as if asking him to say something. Jon strokes his muzzle.

"Better than a horse," he answers.

Dany tells her to follow a path that leads to a cave, where some rows of torches were placed to light the way.

"What are we doing here, Dany?" he asks her.

She advances until they reach a pile of dirt piled up next to what appears to be a ditch. Inside it is the chest with Aemon's letters.

"Why?" he inquires while staring at her with confusion.

Dany looks at him with eyes full of conflict.

"I read a couple of them," she says, "I thought they were going to make me feel better but they don't, they just make me miss everything I could have or have and no longer have."

He feels sorry for her. He does that too every time he remembers the harsh glances of Lady Catelyn who believed him the constant memory of her husband's treason.

"Dany-," he wants to tell her that, although he would never replace the ones she lost, he would be there for her. Always.

"I don't want to feel this way. I don't want to keep looking at the horizon and waiting for something to happen to make me feel complete," she advances until she drags a shovel from a hidden place. "I don't know what will happen ten years from now but I will never get there holding on to the past." She picks up a pile of dirt and throws it in the ditch.

"Dany," he rushes to stop her. "Are you sure?"

Dany looks at him and nods.

So he takes the shovel from her hands and finishes the job for her. He also doesn't feel like he's missing anything. He has known enough of Maester Aemon to have a memory very present in his mind and he preferred to remember his true father as he was in the stories Ser Barristan used to tell Dany and that she shared with him, instead of reading the ravings that led him to ruin the life of his family.

The past is the past. No amount of words was going to bring it back.

Outside a thunder breaks in and makes Dany cry out in surprise.

"Daenerys Stormborn just got scared by thunder?" he jokes.

She rolls her eyes but also gives in and laughs at the irony.

"We are going to have to spend the night in Dragonstone, I don't think it would be ideal to die from a lightning strike," she tells him when they leave the cave and the first drops of rain begin to fall.

They run towards the castle between curses and laughter. The servants pile up to cover them with dry rags the moment they arrive soaked and cold.

He follows her through the hallways until the intersection that divides their paths, where Dany stops and turns on her heel to kiss him goodbye.

"See you at supper," she says before walking to the same chamber she occupied the first time she was there.

Jon watches her go with the certainty that he was not going to make the same mistake he made the last time they were in the chamber of the painted table.

***

"I have to fly to Bay of Dragons," she announces. Taken him aback. "I've received news from Daario."

"Daario?"

"Yes."

"Daario, the sellsword?"

"Yes."

"Daario, your former lover?"

"Yes. Daario, the man I left behind."

She giggles before sipping her wine. He'd sent his congratulations and best wishes, inviting her to pay a visit to survey the maintenance of Meereen and the rest of the cities in the Bay. It's more about keeping him in line if Dany is honest. She wants to believe he will keep his promise but something tells her she will need to reinforce his loyalty with something else eventually. 

"I don't want you to go," Jon says, after a long pause. "Not like that. Not on your own."

She understands it's a risk. 

"I will leave you in charge," she explains, "If I don't come back at least you will be already on the throne," she quips but his stare darkens. 

"Dany," he warns. 

She sighs slightly amused. 

"Are you jealous, Jon Snow?"

"Must I?"

"Of Daario? Absolutely not."

"Of any other man?"

She reaches his hands and wraps it in hers. 

"I have already given my heart to someone and I don't want it back," she tells him with a tender smile, before returning to her meal. 

He stands and kneels before her. 

"Dany, marry me. My heart is also yours and I don't want it back, ever. You let the past to look up to the future, and I also want the same." He pulls back the silver strands of her hair and cups her face in his hands. "I promise you I'll make you happy, no matter the odds."

Dany keeps a cold stare before slowly smiling. 

"That's what I needed for you to make the question? Bring up Daario Naharis, the sellsword, and former lover?"

He looks embarrassed. 

"I asked you before and you rejected me."

She glances at him with knowing eyes and he catches the deep significance behind his own words. In this same room, he had also spurned her. Pulled her away from him and leave her alone when she needed him the most.

"I love you, Dany. I love you and nothing will change that," he insists thought she is certain of his feelings for her. She holds no longer resentment against him. 

"I know," she calms him, raising her hand to cup his cheek. "I know, and I love you too. I've been waiting for you to ask that for a long time now."

"And why didn't you tell me?"

She shrugs. 

"It's not the same."

He throws his head down and sighs as if he had committed a mistake. Again.

"Then, it's that your way to say yes?"

She scoffs.

"It's not that easy to marry a Queen. What do you have to offer me, my Lord?"

He chuckles and she does the same more subtlety. 

"Well, your Grace," he says, "I know how to mount a dragon."

This time Dany laughs with him. It's the first time in a long time she feels tickles in her belly and sincere desire to feel happy.   
Thought the shadows still loom over her from time to time, she is not willing to let this small opportunity anymore.

She stands and moves the plates away to sit above the table, startling Jon and feeling herself a little self-conscious. 

"Then prove what you can do with a dragon and then I'll give you my answer, my Lord."

He first seems too socked at her sudden behavior but then notices how his eyes widen, his breathing accelerates and his fists clench by his sides.

"Are you sure?" he asks while approaching to place himself between her legs.

"I've been sharing a bed with you long enough to know what we both want," she replies, allowing him to bring her closer until his body is completely sealed against her and their faces just inches apart. "If you want a response to your proposal then look for it."

As soon as she ends her sentence he's devouring her lips and Dany beholds how all the walls she built crumble as she surrenders, once more, to their love. They hadn't forgotten a single thing about this and she's happy because of it. Still, there's something else in the desperate way he touches and kisses her, more violent without losing his gentleness. 

He lifts her from her butt to place her in the ground, easily disrobing each other in the meantime. In front of the fireplace, Jon obtains the definitive response for his proposal.


	3. Epilogue: You Can Dream In Any Season

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the sweetest thing I've ever written. 
> 
> *Returns to write her anguish shit again

**Epilogue: You Can Dream In Any Season.**

**315 After the Conquest**. 

Tyrion is taken to the Throne Room heavy guarded by men of dark skin uniformed with black and red armors he understands are former members of the Unsullied. He'd heard Queen Daenerys granted them with lands and the possibility to return to Essos. Most of them are still in King's Landing serving the Queen they chose. He's happy for her.

The place it's been refurbished in its totality, he notes as he walks through the long halls. He has heard rumors of kings from far-off kingdoms coming to present honors and tokens to Queen Daenerys I and King Aegon VI Targaryen, as well as lords from the different kingdoms and cities throughout Westeros that are always well received in the capital. How had Ser Davos said? _What if the Seven Kingdoms, for once in their whole shit history, were ruled by a just woman and an honorable man_? His stupidity and recklessness, and the ill will of many, almost prevented that from happening.

Tyrion wants to believe at heart that, at the end of the day, both Jon and Dany knew how to overcome the vicissitudes of their lives. Break the wheel of tragedies that seemed to follow them as a whimsical destiny. 

The great gates to the Throne Room open, revealing upon the infamous Iron Throne, its Queen. 

To say the view leaves him stunned is an understatement. She has not lost a bit of her intrinsic beauty, nor has her authoritative presence weakened. The last time he saw her sitting upon a throne was at Dragonstone. 

In her serious countenance, however, he notices that she still holds certain suspicion. He'd broken the trust she put on him long ago and has never been able to prove himself worthy of it ever since.

"Your grace," he bows, standing upright and watching her at the eye. He remembers that she despises weakness. "You look...beautiful."

Daenerys does not soften her harsh gaze. In any case, he does not intend to gain back her sympathy. 

"You look well, Lord Tyrion," she replies. The tone of her voice still strong when it needs to be.

Tyrion scoffs and outstretches his arms.

"I'm old."

"We all are."

"Yes, but, age has been kinder with you, though, your grace."

Silence. She stirs a little in her place.

"Something had to be," she says, finally.

It is an overwhelming statement for both of them. One of the things he regrets the most is not having dimensioned the severity and importance of her pain and leaving her so unprotected. What kind of person would not succumb to despair in her stead?

He places himself back in the present.

"I heard the good news," he celebrates, "A boy right? Good thing that succession is not a problem, after all."

It is that comment that finally causes a slight and very discreet smile on her serious face.

"And his name is Robb, which means petty squabbles are forgotten."

Daenerys blinks and relaxes her stance.

"We wanted to call him Eddard but Lady Sansa did what Sansa does and beat us," her lips twitch but this time it's not out of exasperation but at the memory crossing her mind. "Is his first and only son, he wanted to call him as his brother," she explains.

"I do understand. One never erases that kind of bond, not even when death tore us apart."

"We don't." 

Even she had given the name of her late brother, an insufferable man as Tyrion knew, to one of her also late children.

The gates open behind him and the guards, lining up, make room for the King's entrance. Usually, the image is the opposite, the king sits on the throne and the queen is the one appearing with the children. However, unconventional as he is, and has always been, the bastard of Winterfell turned into the King of the Seven Kingdoms, and some time ago, the last male descendant of House Targaryen, cautiously heads in, accompanied with three infants.

One is the most recent addition to their family, their little dark-haired boy who comes in tow. Then on each side of him, two girls. The younger one with the silver hair of her mother was clung to her father's long tunic and staring at Tyrion with widened eyes. 

_She must be thinking me a monster_ , he concludes to himself.

Surprisingly, she lets out a giggle before running pass him toward her mother, her short legs climbing the steps slowly and with difficulty. Daenerys lifts her daughter up when she reaches over. There are the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and the first crowned princess in the whole shitty history of Westeros. 

Tyrion turns again to face Jon Snow - Aegon Targaryen VI - and the other girl standing upright and still by his right side.

 _Joanna_ , he recognizes. 

It took ten years for the queen to finally allow him to return to the capital and meet his niece. She is tall, lean and with a serious expression that he reminds of Cersei. Of course, her golden hair was braided in the same style as her adoptive mother. In her emerald eyes, there is a hint of her father's comedic face.

Tyrion smiles and takes a deep breath.

***

"... _pa_ ," Robb babbles when he raises his eyes to the sky and Starry's shadow looms over them. Dany is quick to cover his little eyes from the sun in time. He had inherited his father's sensibility to sunlight. 

"Yes, Kepa," Dany asserts with a wide smile to her baby son, combing back his shaggy dark curls. He has even more hair than Rhaenna and Joanna had at the same age. 

"... _papapa_ ," he repeats incessantly until small bubbles leave his mouth.

Dany shakes her head with a giggle while cleaning his drooling. 

Jon's presence was requested at Cobbler's Square to attend to an emergency, and it was inevitable that Rhaenna would follow him.

" _She will be their Queen someday, they need to know her_ ," Jon would argue. And then he would also take Joanna and Dany would lose her mind. He is really weak when it comes to his daughters. 

Dany leans back against Drogon's scales as she waits for Tyrion and Joanna's reunion to end. If it had been her decision, it would never have taken place. However, the circumstances of her birth and origin were never denied to her and now that she was on her way to becoming a young lady, the questions about her uncle Tyrion had begun.

She would be lying if she said she is not afraid. Terrified, indeed. Joanna might have the Lannisters' blood but it was entirely hers. She cleaned her when she was a baby, she was there to see her first steps and hear her first words. While everyone advised her to exile her or treat her as the 'bastard' she was, Dany and Jon had protected and loved her as if she were of their own blood.

How could not they love her? Like them, Joanna had born in terrible circumstances and would burden the weight of her parent's actions as her own. There was no way they - especially Dany - would allow the same story to repeat on her. And she is not willing to let Tyrion Lannister take her daughter away from her. 

_Unless she wants to go_ , Dany remembers. _Unless she wants to leave us_. 

Behind her, she hears Jon and Rhaenna voices approaching as they speak about something they would not share with her. The journey was short.

Rhaenna runs to sit beside her and hug Dany. 

"Where is my _mandia_? is she still with the little man?" she asks with her soothing, tender voice as she turns to watch Red Keep.

Jon comes to sit on the ground too and Dany makes space for him to place himself behind her. She lies on his chest as he covers her and a drowsy Robb in his arms. 

"Yes, sweetling," Dany answers to her daughter. "She is still there, speaking with her uncle."

Rhaenna makes a grimace.

"Is the little man my uncle too?"

"No, he's not."

"Why is Joanna's uncle and not mine?"

She is at the tender age of five, and the world is her greatest mystery to unveil. She's constantly asking questions, everywhere she goes and to anyone that crosses her way. 

"Lord Tyrion is Joanna's mother little brother, as Robb is yours," Jon explains.

They have talked to her about Joanna's parents, to the extent a child can understand the subject. 

Immediately after getting married, Dany made that journey to Bay of Dragons, albeit with Jon by her side. As she feared, she had to stay there for a while to restore the order that Daario Naharis could not guarantee. The months she was absent while he returned and stayed in Westeros were the most difficult of their recent marriage and a real proof that if they could go through that together, they could overcome anything.

The following year a plague arose in Westeros and so it seemed that each year they faced a new challenge. Finally, when there was peace, almost as a sign of good omen, Dany discovered that she was with child.

Rhaenna was born after a long and complicated pregnancy that made them decide not to have any more children. However, a year ago, no matter how much Moon Tea she had consumed, she had gotten pregnant with Robb.

" _We should stop planning on this stuff_ ," she said a little bit frustrated, ignoring the sense of danger that was always telling her something would go terribly wrong. 

It turns out to be easy with Robb, more than they had expected. 

"What are you thinking?" Jon asks her when she remains silent for a long moment. Rhaenna making funny faces to her baby brother and delaying his nap. 

Dany swallows hard.

"What if she decides to go?"

"Then, we will have to accept her decision."

She looks up to him.

"I don't want to lose her."

"You won't lose her, Dany. She's your daughter and she loves you as her mother. But, she gets the choice, at the end of the day."

Jon had also been fiercely protective of her, especially since her bastard status was the connotation that weighed most heavily on the girl.

" _I don't want her to grow up believing she has to constantly prove her worth_ ," he had once said.

"What if she chooses not to stay? What if she chooses to hate me one day?"

Many think it's mad that she raised the daughter of the woman she deposed and executed. However, it is not something completely strange and that has not happened before.

"I tell you from experience," he put a light kiss on the crown of her head. "She will find where she belongs, eventually."

When the sun is setting, Joanna climbs the hill where they spent the afternoon. Rhaenna runs to catch her and almost drop the taller girl to the ground. She just laughs and pats Rhaenna's head.

Jon and Dany stand to receive her.

"Well, how was that?" Dany asks with a knot in her stomach. 

"He's very kind," she replies, looking uncertain and doubtful. "He told me you and Father were his friends once. He also mentioned how greatly misses Ser Jaime Lannister."

Jon puts his hand on her shoulder. 

"He was a great knight and fought with us against the Army of the Dead. You should always remember that."

"I know," she says with a slight smile, turning her eyes on Dany. "He also recounts what _she_ did with your dragon and your friend Missandei."

Although the pain is not the same, nor does she feel dizzy and lost, her chest aches when she hears Missandei's name. The memory of Rhaegal falling from the sky. Jorah, Viserion, they all come back together. 

Jon moves his hand to massage her lower back in reassurance. 

"I know she hurt you," Joanna approaches with watering eyes, "I'm so sorry."

Dany goes for her and wraps her in a hug.

"Never feel like you have to apologize to me for what your mother did, or anything you haven't done yourself," she pulls away and looks her in the eye. Sometimes she liked to remember Rhaegal's scales in them. "We are not our parents. We come into this world to leave it better than they left it."

Joanna embraces Dany again and lets her tears run freely down her cheeks.

Rhaenna moves to the place between them.

"Why are you crying?" she asks with her little brow furrowed. 

"They are not crying with sadness. Sometimes people cry because they are happy," Jon intervenes.

"How can you be happy and sad at the same time?" she refutes, now a little annoyed at feeling cheated.

Between Robb's babble and Rhaenna's chattering, Daenerys forgets for a moment her greatest fear. However, as Jon and the children walk in front of them, Joanna turns around and says to her, "He told me that he wants to make me his heir since he does not have a wife and children. He is very ill."

Dany had noticed that he looked deteriorated but thought that it was simple aging.

"So you want to go with him?"

"I would like..." then the noble lady's facade crumbles and she begins to stutter as if she couldn't gather the words to express herself. "If your grace-,"

Dany lifts her hand to halt her.

"It's fine, sweetling," she understands, though her heart is broken. "Just remember that, here," and she looks up to where Jon and the children are, "is your home too."

***

"Why can't I touch the snow, Kepa?"

It is difficult to find enough wood for the fire in this area but not impossible. He thought about going to Wintertown but Rhaenna is impossible to distract and would follow him all the way. The North is still a place of coldness and distrust, Rhaenna would have to deal with them eventually but Jon and Dany prefer that day be farther than close.

"Because you can get burnt," he explains to his daughter, who follows him close behind, ditching in the snow with her woolen mittens. 

"But is ice, Kepa!" she protests with pouting lips.

"Aye, it can burn if you touch it too long."

"Fire burns, ice make you cold," she insists, making Jon chuckle. Most of his day involves speaking with his little one in circles. He wouldn't change a single thing of it.

"Those are very similar things sometimes."

"I don't understand!"

"Rhaenna, if I get you mittens off, your mother will be mad at me. Do you want her to be mad at me?"

And if it that happens, his night will be colder than already is. Obviously, he omits that part.

"No-oh," she says, giggling. At her very young age, she's learned not to pushing the limits of her mother's strong character. 

Jon takes his part of the wood and takes just a small portion for her to carry. 

"Well, take these with you and watch your way," he indicates. 

Like a flash, Ghost appears by her side. He has lost the count, but he's sure that the direwolf does that in his own will. Rhaenna can be the very image of her mother but she's fond of this side of her blood.

"Kepa." 

"Aye?"

"Why Ghost can't have any puppies as Drogon and Starry, and the other dragons?"

She's too young to understand that dragons don't mate exactly so she interpreted that Drogon and Starry are the largest ones because the others are their children.

"Mayhaps he has puppies somewhere else and we yet haven't seen them."

Delighted, this idea draws a wide smile on her face. 

"I want a puppy, Kepa!"

"Do you? But you have a whole dragon already."

That isn't exactly the truth. Eventually, she will bond with one of the dragons but she still hasn't been taken that close, by herself, to one of them except for Drogon and Starry. 

" _I would have liked to put the egg on her crib as our family used to do_ ," Dany complained about once. " _But I swear it, they are so hard to find!_ "

Dragonstone had become like a large lair for them. Dany has no idea if they all come from Viserion and Rhaegal, or if as he says, she with her magic has awakened the fossilized eggs that were already there.

"I want a dragon for fire and a puppy of Ghost for ice!"

 _A queen of ice and fire_ , he thinks.

"Well, if we see some of his puppies someday you can name him or her and it will be yours." 

Of course, it is improbable since Ghost is mostly on his own and Jon has never seen him accompanied by his pack.

"Can Robb have one too? and Joanna? I want to bring puppies to all my friends!"

He laughs hard now, imagining feral direwolves rounding King's Landing streets. That poor people have enough with the dragons roaming the skies.

"Let's go home before your mother sets the fireplace herself."

"Duh we have the sticks to set the fire, you silly!"

They finally return home. It’s not exactly at the waterfall, but it is in a place nearby. It was actually Dany's idea to have a residence in the North so they can escape the turmoil of the south whenever they wanted. He believes the reason why Rhaenna is so enamored with the cold weather is because she was conceived there in the North, he is sure of it.

Jon blushes at the memory and hurries to grab his daughter and make her enter their home. 

He hears Dany's voice greeting Rhaenna and responding to the girl's chattering with interest. Jon goes in and finds them there, the three of them in front of the weak flames of the fireplace. 

"What took you so long? Your queen is cooling!" Dany quips from her seat. Robb is cradled in her arms, latching onto her breast.

If someone asks him again what Jon wants, he will respond exactly this. This is what he's always wanted. He can accept the crown and the responsibilities and even enjoy the work every now and then, but this is what he enjoys the most. A family on his own. 

Of course, without Joanna, it feels a little bit incomplete. Yet he knows it's the best for her to get to know about her family and find out who she is. At least, she has the truth from the beginning and love is something she will never have to crave for.

Later in the night, he will make sure she's bloody warm but for now, he goes a puts a light kiss on her head before going down to abide by the order of his queen.

They will always need ice to indulge their fire.

**FIN**.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small reflection: I was watching Jordi Maquiavello's analysis of the trilogy of Lord of the Rings, and there's this line he says 
> 
> "The scene of the coronation of Aragorn is what one can call predictable, but it is gratifying because the character has shown us through his journey that he is worthy of such honor."
> 
> And that's what I think about Dany and Jon at the end of S8. They deserve the crown not because of their name, but because despite their name they have proven time and time again to be willing to sacrifice what is necessary for the greater good. I speak beyond the final intentions of GRRM, since we cannot comment on his ending until we have it in our hands and see if what he wanted to convey was distorted by D&D and his need to subvert expectations at the cost of the characters' arcs.

**Author's Note:**

> Finishing The Threshold? I don't know her.
> 
> Seriously though, I haven't had a damn break between so many college assignments. Every time I finish one, I get an email with a new one. I wrote this in one go yesterday night and edited it today in fifteen minutes. The Threshold takes me a lot more time.


End file.
